Author: Doug LeMoine

Rainbow's genius lit­tle descrip­tion of the FPS — "This cheese is men­tioned in every cheese book from the 70's" — doesn't men­tion ONE rel­a­tive­ly impor­tant qual­i­ty of it — the fact that it has almost no taste, and the taste that it does have IS GROSS. Its "mild­ness" reminds me a lit­tle of, say, fresh moz­erel­la, but it has this weird, red-wine‑y bite that does not make you say mmm. Plus, it has a paste-like tex­ture that lends itself nei­ther to spread­ing, nor to slic­ing; so, if you buy any FPS, remem­ber to get some tongue depres­sors to apply it to your crack­er. Of course, you could also put on your Fos­ter Grants and your chunky turtle­neck sweater and go back in time — back to the time when books were writ­ten about cheese. It's up to you.

Soon­er or lat­er, the gods of gou­da will deliv­er a cheese that I don't like, but it hasn't hap­pened yet. This youth­ful goat gou­da is more light-heart­ed than its 2- or 4‑year cousins, the sorts with the sneaky creamy-slash-salty bite that roots you to your chair like you're James Bond in Moon­rak­er, stuck in the cen­trifuge, face con­tort­ing. The two-month is a more play­ful cheese. It's lighter, less seri­ous, and fresh­er. If cheeses were rel­a­tives, you'd ask the 2- and 4‑year goudas for advice in mat­ters of the heart, but you'd take the two-month to a bar because it would help you meet girls. This par­tic­u­lar gou­da is just goaty enough to be sat­is­fy­ing when eat­en with a Fuji apple after a short evening run and, like its elder cousins, it should always be washed down with dark beer.

This occu­pied Rainbow's spe­cial lit­tle Cheese-of-the-Day table a while ago, and I still feel con­flict­ed about it. I tast­ed it and I liked it enough to buy a brick of it. But when I ate a slice on Ryvi­ta, I noticed that it has a some­what dis­con­cert­ing nose, and a weird, gum­my tex­ture. Still, it intrigued me, like a girl who some­how isn't my type but has some enchant­i­ng qual­i­ty that makes me won­der what the hell my type is, and what, for that mat­ter, attrac­tion is, and why the uni­verse seems so ran­dom when it comes to these things. So I've nib­bled at the Vaster­bot­ten for three weeks now, and still there's over half the brick left. So I'm won­der­ing whether I should just call the whole thing off, just end it all RIGHT NOW. Is any­one lis­ten­ing to me out there? Is there any rhyme or rea­son to any of this? I JUST WANT SOME KIND OF SIGN. Are you there, God?

Upon first tast­ing this cheese at Rain­bow, I ignored the post­ed rules and REUSED my tast­ing tooth­pick five times. Okay, nine, maybe ten times. This nut­ty, salty cheese was made to be eat­en with some­thing green. Kale works, and so do green beans. Am I reserv­ing a spot in my safe room's mini-fridge for a wedge of the Moose? Maybe. It depends on how well it melts in a quesadilla.

News flash: Parme­san cheese is not just for sprin­kling on piz­za. While its taste­less, soul­less parem­san cousins became condi­ments, Reg­gian­no kept its feet on the ground and its head in the game. Name­ly, it kept its taste and tex­ture real, so real, in fact, that peo­ple who sprin­kle it on piz­za should be thrown in fuck­ing jail. Seri­ous­ly. It should be eat­en alone. Okay, maybe on a light crack­er; maybe with a touch of olive oil, but it should always — ALWAYS — be eat­en late at night, in a dark kitchen, after a long evening out.

Don't bog­a­rt the Fog, my friend. On the evo­lu­tion­ary lad­der of cream cheese, this kind North­ern Cal­i­forn­ian nug is the most high­ly evolved, a hair­less biped with ESP among mass-mar­ket sub­species with brow ridges and sag­gi­tal crests. Pay spe­cial atten­tion to the stripe of green that accen­tu­ates the creamy white body like pip­ing on a tracksuit.

It's flaky, but full of life, like a good yoga teacher. It's also salty, which makes it more like a good yoga teacher from New York. Added bonus­es: it's got a very dis­tin­guised dark orange col­or, and it's very styl­ish­ly pack­aged in a sim­ple black rind. A handy acces­so­ry in the evening.